zaterdag 10 januari 2009

In the annals of war crimes, the name "Zeitoun" will assume its place alongside names like "My Lai," "Fallujah," "Sabra-Shatila," "Guernica," "Nanking," "Lidice," and "Wounded Knee."In the last two days, the massacre that took place in Zeitoun, a neighborhood on the southern flats approaching Gaza City, has only now begun to come into focus. Aid groups, including the Red Cross, have used the three-hour pauses in Israel bombardment that began on Wednesday in a desperate attempt to remove the wounded, some of whom apparently still remain. Most of the dead have been left behind.What is particularly horrifying about the Zeitoun massacre—details of which continue to unfold—is the sadistic behavior of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). This is a mass killing that has unfolded over days.

It appears that the IDF tricked residents, promising that they would be safe gathered in large groups in particular buildings, only to bomb them later. Over the course of four days, the Israelis then left the sick and dying—all civilians, the majority small children—with no medical assistance, food or water, even though Israelis enjoyed total control over the area. At the same time, they refused repeated requests for access to the neighborhood by aid workers.It is not clear how many have died in Zeitoun. At this point, it appears the number is somewhere between 70 and 85. But this figure may grow significantly as the unassisted wounded continue to die, and as aid workers uncover bodies of victims in bombed-out buildings.Israel raided Zeitoun on Sunday, quickly establishing its control. The town occupies a strategic location south of Gaza City, and will be used should the IDF launch an attack on the city proper.According to survivors, after invading the IDF compelled extended families to gather in centrally located buildings, marching families at gunpoint from one building to the next. The IDF told the residents of Zeitoun that they were being led to houses that would not be bombed.But in at least once case, it has emerged that the IDF forced some 110 Palestinians into a house that was then bombed within 24 hours, killing perhaps 70 people, all civilians. Aid workers only discovered the corpses after being prevented for four days by the IDF from visiting the neighborhood in Zeitoun.Those in the building, which has been described as a "warehouse" by one survivor, were left inside without food or water. After one day, three men attempted to venture out to find food. They were immediately hit by a barrage of IDF fire. At that point, a missile hit the rooftop of the warehouse.Meysa Samouni, a 19-year-old who survived the attack with her two-year-old daughter, who was maimed, described the scene: "When the missile stuck, I lay down with my daughter under me. Everything filled up with smoke and dust, and I heard screams and crying. After the smoke and dust cleared a bit, I looked around and saw 20 to 30 people who were dead, and about 20 who were wounded."The persons killed around me were my husband, who was hit in the back, my father-in-law, who was hit in the head and whose brain was on the floor, my mother-in-law Rabab, my father-in-law's brother Talal, and his wife Rhama Muhammad a-Samouni, 45, Talal's son's wife, Maha Muhammad a-Samouni, 19, and her son, Muhammad Hamli a-Samouni, five months, whose whole brain was outside his body, Razqa Muhammad a-Samouni, 50, Hanan Khamis a-Samouni, 30, and Hamdi Majid a-Samouni, 22."A Red Cross medic who visited Zeitoun described a horrific scene. "Inside the Samouni house I saw about 10 bodies and outside another 60,'' the medic told the Telegraph. "I was not able to count them accurately because there was not much time and we were looking for wounded people.... I could see an Israeli army bulldozer knocking down houses nearby but we ran out of time and the Israeli soldiers started shooting at us.""We had to leave about eight injured people behind because we could not get to them and it was no longer safe for us to stay.'"In another building in Zeitoun, the Israelis gathered 80 people together. Survivors report Israeli soldiers gunning people down in cold blood as they later attempted to flee. One man, Atiyeh Samouni, was shot by Israelis after he opened his door to receive them. Then his two-year old son was shot, a survivor said.Most of the men of Zeitoun were rounded up, blindfolded, and marched away. Some were used as human shields, survivors say.The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' statement on the bombing was based on the account of survivors, but it corroborated an AP story and testimony gathered by an Israeli human rights group.This was the same neighborhood where a day earlier the Red Cross found four half-dead children near the corpses of their mothers. The Red Cross discovered the bodies of 15 other people in a bombed structure, who likely suffered slow and agonizing deaths for lack of medical care. Israeli soldiers were stationed within 100 yards of the dying family.Aid agencies became aware of the massacre at Zeitoun when surviving members of the Samouni clan arrived in Gaza City early in the week. According to the Telegraph, "A handful of survivors, some wounded, others carrying dead or dying infants, made it on foot to Gaza's main north-south road before they were given lifts to hospital. Three small children were buried in Gaza City that afternoon."But Israel refused to allow the Red Cross to visit the neighborhood until Wednesday.One hundred other people in need of medical treatment have been evacuated from Zeitoun—not for injuries, but for dehydration and famine. The town has been without water and food since Israel overran it Sunday evening.Speaking in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay condemned the Israeli atrocities in Gaza. Israel claims that all of its actions are justified by Palestinians' ineffective rocket fire from Gaza. But Pillay said that this did not obviate Israel from observing international law. In an interview with BBC, Pillay said Israel's actions appear to have "all the elements of war crimes."Because the IDF has persistently attacked relief organizations, the UN and the World Food Program have stopped delivery of relief supplies to Gaza. Since Wednesday, Israel has claimed to observe a three-hour cease-fire in order to allow humanitarian workers to reach areas the IDF controls. However, in several instances, the IDF has fired on aid workers during the supposed three-hour lapse.According to the Geneva Conventions, an invading army is responsible for caring for the sick, wounded, and hungry in the territory it controls. Israel clearly does not observe these conventions, effectively blocking the delivery of food and medicine, firing upon ambulances and preventing them from reaching the wounded, and leaving the sick and wounded under its own control to die.There are indications that Zeitoun was specifically targeted for exemplary punishment by the IDF. The Telegraph reports that it was a place of known Hamas activity.The Zeitoun massacre is a horrific war crime for which the IDF and the Israeli government bear responsibility. But the IDF's rampage would not be possible without the full backing of the US and the complicity of the UN, the European powers, and the Arab regimes of the Middle East.Should Israel enter Gaza City, home to more than 400,000 people, the methods used at Zeitoun will be repeated on a much more deadly scale.'

It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa. In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions—BDS for short—was born. Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews.

In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.… This international backing must stop." Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments. 1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called "constructive engagement." It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures—quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non–Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers "upgraded" the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem. It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed. 2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes of South African apartheid in the occupied territories: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was "infinitely worse than apartheid." That was in 2007, before Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza. 3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work. 4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, including the wonderful writer John Berger, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis. Coming up with our modest publishing plan required dozens of phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, stretching from Tel Aviv to Ramallah to Paris to Toronto to Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start implementing a boycott strategy, dialogue increases dramatically. And why wouldn't it? Building a movement requires endless communicating, as many in the antiapartheid struggle well recall. The argument that supporting boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at one another across national boundaries. No boycott can stop us. Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of those very high-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom specializing in voice-over-internet services, sent an email to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company." Ramsey says that his decision wasn't political; he just didn't want to lose customers. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients," he explains, "so it was purely commercially defensive." It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine. This column was first published in The Nation Further Information:The only international news network covering every aspect of the war on Gaza is Al Jazeera English. The station isn't available in North America but you can watch it live in high-quality through http://www.livestation.com/ (player download is required).Disengagement and the Frontiers of Zionism by Darryl LiBilbao InitiativeEmail this page to a friendYour Email: *Your Name: *Send To: *Subscribeto Naomi Klein's Newsletter.A Film byAvi Lewis & Naomi KleinFeatured Activist Campaign BAIL OUT THE HUNGRYSupport HungerFREE Women Powered byContact • About this Site'

'The revised book is a double-edged sword. It is based on many documents that were not available to me when I wrote the original book, most of them from the Israel Defense Forces Archives. What the new material shows is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought. To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape. In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah [the pre-state defense force that was the precursor of the IDF] were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy the villages themselves.'

En:

'From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created...Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist.'

Dit schreef al begin vorig jaar Karen Koning Abu Zaid, hoofd van de United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), "Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and - some would say - encouragement of the international community." Zie: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

The United Nations is claiming Israeli military officers have admitted there was no Palestinian gunfire emanating from inside an UNRWA school in Gaza which was shelled by an IDF tank.

Dozens of Palestinians were killed in the shelling.

In addition, UNRWA Thursday announced it will cease activities in the Strip due to the death of an UNRWA staffer in an IDF shelling during Thursday morning's humanitarian hiatus.UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness told Haaretz yesterday that the army had conceded wrongdoing.

"In briefings senior [Israel Defense Forces] officers conducted for foreign diplomats, they admitted the shelling to which IDF forces in Jabalya were responding did not originate from the school," Gunness said. "The IDF admitted in that briefing that the attack on the UN site was unintentional."

He noted that all the footage released by the IDF of militants firing from inside the school was from 2007 and not from the incident itself.

"There are no up-to-date photos," Gunness said. "In 2007, we abandoned the site and only then did the militants take it over."

The UNRWA is now demanding an objective investigation into whether the school shelling constituted a violation of international humanitarian law, and if so, that those responsible stand trial.

The UN reported Thursday that a Palestinian working for the UNRWA was killed by an IDF tank shell while driving an aid truck at the Erez border crossing. The organization claims the UN truck was well-marked and the incident took place during the humanitarian hiatus slated to allow Gaza residents to acquire supplies.'

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Throughout the 11 days of Israel's pummeling of Gaza, live coverage of the war hasn't made it into most American living rooms.That's because Israel, America's staunch ally, isn't allowing journalists to enter Gaza while Al Jazeera, called anti-American and pro-terrorist by many in Washington, is the only network broadcasting live images from Gaza to the world.The 350 reporters who descended on Israel when the conflict began are stuck at the border between Israel and Gaza. Israel says that opening border crossings to journalists would put their soldiers in danger, but many have accused them of trying to control the story. Instead of giving their viewers up-close pictorial evidence of what is occurring in Gaza, television networks have been restricted to showing their viewers plumes of smoke as they rise in the distance.But Al Jazeera, the Qatari network that has previously undergone attacks and had its reporters arrested by the U.S. military, remains typically defiant. While other networks are increasingly severed from Gaza as phone lines are cut and 75 percent of the territory is without electricity, Al Jazeera is bringing its approximately 140 million English- and Arabic-speaking viewers live images of bombings, tanks rolling through Gaza's farmland, and interviews with civilians and aid workers inside Gaza city.Like all of the networks, Al Jazeera gives constant hard-hitting interviews with politicians and analysts from Israel, the West Bank, and the rest of the Arab world. But while others can only balance pundits with more pundits, Al Jazeera has been taking the viewer to the scene to weigh the words of politicians against the reality on the ground.Take Israel's claim that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. After showing an Israeli politician writing off the assertion of the existence of a humanitarian disaster, Al Jazeera cut to the Al Shifa hospital, the largest in all of Gaza. There, we saw that there were not enough medical supplies and civilians lying on bloody hospital beds told us that their lives were not only being crippled by bombs falling on their houses, but by the extreme lack of water and food for the people cowering inside them.One man, as he held his dead, pale faced 7-month-old son in his arms, said, "We were in our house for three days before the bombs fell on us. We called for the Red Cross and humanitarian groups, but no one was able to reach us…We have no one but God."Israeli officials continue to assert that they are allowing in humanitarian aid by opening the border, but as Al Jazeera's Ayman Moheyaldin reported from the inside, "The point is not that you open the crossings to allow in 30 to 40 trucks, but that you keep them open and allow a continuous amount of goods to enter for a sustainable amount of time."The problem isn't only that supplies can't get in. People still can't get out. Most are left searching hopelessly for safety while their stories remain trapped within Gaza's walls.'

Conflicts across the globe and an international respect for Barack Obama have created the perfect setting for establishment of "a New World Order," according to Henry Kissinger, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former secretary of state under President Nixon.Kissinger has long been an integral figure in U.S. foreign policy, holding positions in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. Author of over a dozen books on foreign policy, Kissinger was also named by President Bush as the chairman of the Sept. 11 investigatory commission.Kissinger made the remark in an interview with CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" hosts Mark Haines and Erin Burnett at the New York Stock Exchange, after Burnett asked him what international conflict would define the Obama administration's foreign policy.Read "Hope of the Wicked," where author Ted Flynn reveals the greatest deception in modern history – corporations, foundations and governments converging to bring about a New World Order."The president-elect is coming into office at a moment when there is upheaval in many parts of the world simultaneously," Kissinger responded. "You have India, Pakistan; you have the jihadist movement. So he can't really say there is one problem, that it's the most important one. But he can give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world. His task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It's a great opportunity, it isn't just a crisis."Kissinger's comments are captured at roughly the two-minute mark of the following video:Editor's note: The video includes a balloon in the first several seconds promoting a MySpace page that includes profane language and music and is not endorsed in any way by WND.'

On the eve of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the military coup in Chile, the National Security Archive today published for the first time formerly secret transcripts of Henry Kissinger’s telephone conversations that set in motion a massive U.S. effort to overthrow the newly-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende. "We will not let Chile go down the drain," Kissinger told CIA director Richard Helms in one phone call."I am with you," the September 12, 1970 transcript records Helms responding.The telephone call transcripts—known as ‘telcons’—includepreviously-unreported conversations between Kissinger and President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State William Rogers. Just eight days after Allende's election, Kissinger informed the president that the State Department had recommended an approach to "see what we can work out[with Allende]." Nixon responded by instructing Kissinger: "Don’tlet them do it."After Nixon spoke directly to Rogers, Kissinger recorded a conversation in which the Secretary of State agreed that "we ought, as you say, to cold-bloodedly decide what to do and then do it," but warned it should be done "discreetly so that it doesn’t backfire."Secretary Rogers predicted that "after all we have said about elections, if the first time a Communist wins the U.S. tries to prevent the constitutional process from coming into play we will look very bad."The telcons also reveal that just nine weeks before the Chilean military, led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet and supported by the CIA, overthrew the Allende government on September 11, 1973, Nixon called Kissinger on July 4 to say "I think that Chilean guy might have some problems." "Yes, I think he’s definitely in difficulties,"Kissingerresponded. Nixon then blamed CIA director Helms and former U.S.Ambassador Edward Korry for failing to block Allende’s inauguration three years earlier. "They screwed it up," the President declared.Although Kissinger never intended the public to know about these conversations, observed Peter Kornbluh, who directs the National Security Archive’s Chile Documentation Project, he "bestowed on history a gift that keeps on giving by secretly taping and transcribing his phone calls." The transcripts, Kornbluh noted, provide historians with the ability to "eavesdrop on the most candid conversations of the highest and most powerful U.S. officials as they plotted covert intervention against a democratically-elected government."Kissinger began secretly taping all his incoming and outgoing phone conversations when he became national security advisor in 1969; his secretaries transcribed the calls from audio tapes that were later destroyed. When Kissinger left office in January 1977, he took more than 30,000 pages of the transcripts, claiming they were "personal papers," and used them, selectively, to write his memoirs. In 1999, the National Security Archive initiated legal proceedings to force Kissinger to return these records to the U.S. government so they could be subject to the freedom of information act and declassification. At the request of Archive senior analyst William Burr, telcons on foreign policy crises from the early 1970s, including these four previously-unknown conversations on Chile, were recently declassified by the Nixon Presidential library.'

To end the bloody occupation, Israel should become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to South Africa's apartheid. It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become thetarget of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.

In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions -- BDS for short -- was born.Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.… This international backing must stop."Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments.1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called "constructive engagement." It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures -- quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non–Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers "upgraded" the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes of South African apartheid in the occupied territories: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza was "infinitely worse than apartheid." That was in 2007, before Israel began its full-scale war against the open-air prison that is Gaza.'

PARIS — The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it had discovered "shocking" scenes — including small children next to their mothers' corpses — when its representatives gained access for the first time to parts of Gaza battered by Israeli shelling. It accused Israel of failing to meet obligations to care for the wounded in areas of combat.In response, the Israeli military did not comment directly on the allegation. In a statement, it accused Hamas, its foe in Gaza, of deliberately using "Palestinian civilians as human shields" and said the Israeli Army "works in close cooperation with international aid organizations during the fighting so that civilians can be provided with assistance."The Israeli military "in no way intentionally targets civilians and has demonstrated its willingness to abort operations to save civilian lives and to risk injury in order to assist innocent civilians," the statement said, promising that "any serious allegation" would "need to be investigated properly, once such a complaint is received formally, within the constraints of the current military operation."In an unusually blunt criticism, the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross said it had been seeking access to shell-damaged areas in Zeitoun in the east of Gaza City since Saturday but the Israeli authorities granted permission only on Wednesday — the first day that Israel allowed a three-hour lull in the attacks on Gaza on humanitarian grounds.The statement said a team of four Palestine Red Crescent ambulances accompanied by Red Cross representatives made its way to Zeitoun Wednesday where it "found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses."In another house, the statement said, the rescue team "found 15 other survivors of this attack including several wounded. In yet another house, they found an additional three corpses. Israeli soldiers posted at a military position some 80 meters away from this house ordered the rescue team to leave the area which they refused to do. There were several other positions of the Israeli Defense Forces nearby as well as two tanks."Because of berms built by Israeli forces, the ambulances could not enter the area so "the children and the wounded had to be taken to the ambulances on a donkey cart," the statement said.The statement quoted Pierre Wettach, an International Red Cross representative for Israel and the Palestinian areas, as calling the incident "shocking.""The Israeli military must have been aware of the situation but did not assist the wounded. Neither did they make it possible for us or the Palestine Red Crescent to assist the wounded," he was quoted as saying.The statement said the international Red Cross "believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded. It considers the delay in allowing rescue services access unacceptable."'

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called Friday for an independent war crimes investigation in Gaza after reports that Israeli forces shelled a house full of Palestinian civilians, killing 30 people.Navi Pillay told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council that the harm to Israeli civilians caused by Hamas rockets was unacceptable, but did not excuse any abuses carried out by Israeli forces in response.Pillay went further in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., saying an incident in Gaza City this week "appears to have all the elements of war crimes."The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israeli troops evacuated Palestinian civilians to a house in the Zeitoun neighborhood on Jan. 4, then shelled the building 24 hours later.The U.N. agency said 110 people were in the house, according to testimony from four witnesses.On Thursday, the international Red Cross said the Israeli army refused rescuers permission to reach wounded people in the neighborhood for four days. Israel said the delay was caused by fighting in the area.Pillay told the Geneva-based rights council that all parties to the conflict had a duty to care for the wounded and avoid targeting health workers, hospitals and ambulances.Violations of international humanitarian law may amount to war crimes for which individuals should be held accountable, she said.The 47-member council, which is dominated by Arab and African countries, is debating a resolution condemning Israel for its actions in Gaza. The motion could be delayed until Monday.'

Incoming administration will abandon Bush's isolation of Islamist group to initiate low-level diplomacy, say transition sources.Washington - The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon President Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.The move to open contacts with Hamas - which could be initiated through the US intelligence services - would represent a definitive break with the Bush presidency's ostracising of the group.The Guardian has spoken to three people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp.There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on in his administration, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive.A tested course would be to start contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services - similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.Richard Haass, a diplomat under both presidents Bush who was named by a number of news organisations this week as Obama's choice for Middle East envoy, supports low level contacts with Hamas provided there is a ceasefire in place and a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation emerges.Another potential contender for a foreign policy role in the Obama administration suggested the president-elect would not be bound by the Bush doctrine of isolating Hamas. "This is going to be an administration that is committed to negotiating with critical parties on critical issues," they said.There are a number of options that would avoid a politically toxic scenario for Obama of seeming to give legitimacy to Hamas."Secret envoys, multilateral six-party talk-like approaches. The total isolation of Hamas that we promulgated under Bush is going to end," said Steve Clemons, the director of the American Strategy Programme at the New America Foundation."You could do something through the Europeans. You could invent a structure that is multilateral. It is going to be hard for the Neocons to swallow," he said. "I think it is going to happen.'

Joint letter to the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention9 January 2009

Dear High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention,

As local, regional and international human rights organisations concerned with respect for international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and in all situations of armed conflict, it is in both desperation and hope that we write to call for the urgent reconvening of the Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention. The past two weeks have witnessed the heaviest aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip since 1967, and the situation of the protected civilian population there is more critical than ever before.

At approximately 11:30 am on 27 December 2008 Israel launched “Operation Cast Lead,” a large-scale aerial offensive in the Gaza Strip. The continuing air strikes have been followed by Israeli ground troops, which invaded the Gaza Strip on the night of 3 January 2009. To date, these attacks have resulted in the death of at least 729 Palestinians, 603 of whom were civilians, including 173 children, and the further wounding of over 3,200 more. In addition, the Israeli military attacks have resulted in the widespread destruction of civilian property such as homes, schools and mosques.

While Palestinian armed groups have acted in violation of international humanitarian law in launching indiscriminate weapons towards Israel, these unlawful attacks do not justify equally unlawful attacks by the Israeli occupying forces. Israeli Foreign Minister Livni’s comments that such groups “don’t make a distinction, and neither should we,” show disregard for the law and reveal a criminal intent to target civilians. In keeping with this statement, “Operation Case Lead” has displayed a disproportionate and often indiscriminate use of force against densely populated civilian areas throughout the Gaza Strip. A full analysis of Israel’s violations of the international humanitarian law principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack, and of grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention committed, can be found in Al-Haq’s legal brief, available at http://www.alhaq.org/etemplate.php?id=411.

In December 2001, the Conference of High Contracting Parties convened and called upon Israel, “to fully and effectively respect the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Such political dialogue, however, void of any concrete measures of action by the High Contracting Parties to ensure respect for the Convention, inevitably failed to induce Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law. In August 2004, the UN General Assembly invited Switzerland, in its capacity as the depository of the Geneva Conventions, “to conduct consultations and to report to the General Assembly […] with regard to the possibility of resuming the Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention.” Having done so, Switzerland reported back to the General Assembly in June 2005, explaining that informal consultations with the High Contracting Parties had resulted in the opinion that reconvening the Conference was “not the course to be pursued” at that moment. Hopes raised by “encouraging political developments” such as Israel’s so-called ‘disengagement’ from the Gaza Strip, and the need to place faith in an apparently nascent ‘peace process’ were cited as the basis for that opinion. In the three and a half years that have since passed, the peace process has been shown to be a mere façade, while Israel’s intensification of attacks and collective punishment against the occupied civilian population of the Gaza Strip has precipitated a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions.

The failure of the High Contracting Parties to effectively engage their own clearly defined legal obligations to ensure respect for the Fourth Geneva Convention amounts to tacit acquiescence to Israel’s calculated and systematic disregard for international humanitarian law. Further inaction at this time would not only betray any hope that the civilians of the Gaza Strip have left in the ability of international humanitarian law to provide protection and alleviate their suffering, but would leave broader question marks as to the basic commitment of the High Contracting Parties to invest in the future relevance of international humanitarian law.

There is no longer any possible justification for the Conference of the High Contracting Parties not to be resumed. Thus, in the interests of respect for both international humanitarian law and the notion that informs and underpins it—basic humanity—we urge the High Contracting Parties to reconvene with a view to establishing consensus on immediate and concrete collective measures that can be taken under the framework of the UN, in order to ensure Israel’s compliance with its legal obligations and to bring to an end the violations of international humanitarian law currently being committed with impunity in the Gaza Strip. We further urge individual initiatives by High Contracting Parties aimed at ensuring respect for the Fourth Geneva Convention under Article 1, and at holding perpetrators of grave breaches responsible under Article 146.

We look forward to receiving your response and remain at your disposal for any questions, comments or requests for further information that you might have.

'UN Human Rights Investigator Richard Falk called the Israeli blockade of Gaza "a crime against humanity" and a "flagrant and massive violation of international law." Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, urged the UN to invoke "the agreed norm of a responsibility to protect a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a Crime Against Humanity." Falk also called for an International Criminal Court investigation of Israeli military and civilian officials for potential prosecution.For this, he was detained at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport for 20 hours before being expelled from Israel.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/010609A Lees ook: http://atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/7079-understanding-the-gaza-catastrophe

'1973: Israelis catch Soviet spy ring in high levels of Israeli government and make it clear to Soviets they have produced "suitcase nukes" they could sneak into Russia. Egypt and Syria attack unprepared Israeli forces in Sinai and Golan Heights on the Jewish fast in Yom Kippur War. Israel goes on nuclear alert and begins to ready nuclear weapons for actual use, forcing the U.S. to airlift them weapons and to start redeploying nuclear armed ships and airplanes. When Soviets started talking about sending in Russian troops, Israel again goes on nuclear alert. Washington pressures Israel to accept a cease-fire. 1974: Defense Minister Dayan visits South Africa to discuss testing a nuclear weapon there.'

'From Seymour Hersh's best selling book "The Samson Option", quoting former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon: "We are much more important than (Americans) think. We can take the middle east with us whenever we go." And quoting a “former Israeli govt official” with “first hand knowledge of his government’s nuclear weapons program”: “We can still remember the smell of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Next time we’ll take all of you with us.” Hersh's book details at length Israel's targeting of the Soviet Union; their spy Jonathan Pollard was particularly interested in stealing U.S. targeting information on its cities. Do they like Russia any more now that it is giving nuclear aid and long range missiles to Iran? Two high profile Israel supporters - professors yet! - have written particularly chilling comments: Martin Van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem stated: "We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: ‘Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.’ [...] We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under." In 2002 the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter in which he wrote: "What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away--unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans--have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?"

En over de terreur tegen de Palestijnen een andere academicus: 'This inhuman madness will end only with the end of the violent ideology that spawned it-when those who are committed to the project of creating and maintaining a religiously and ethnically exclusivist state in what has always been a culturally and religiously heterogeneous land finally relent and accept the inevitable: that they have failed. 'Saree Makdisi is a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA and the author of http://www.counterpunch.org/makdisi01072009.html Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation.